SDG 15.4.2 - Mountain Green Cover Index (Percentage (%))
Concepts: The Mountain Green Cover index is based on two descriptor layers of information:
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A mountain descriptor layer: mountains can be defined with reference to a variety of parameters, such as climate, elevation, ecology (Körner et al., 2011) (Karagulle et al., 2017). This methodology adheres to the UNEP- WCMC mountain definition, relying in turn on the mountain description proposed by Kapos et al. (2000).
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A vegetation descriptor layer: The vegetation descriptor layer categorizes land cover into green and non-green areas. Green vegetation includes both natural vegetation and vegetation resulting from anthropic activity (e.g. crops, afforestation, etc.). Non-green areas include very sparsely vegetated areas, bare land, water, permanent ice/snow and urban areas. The vegetation description layer can be derived in different ways, but remote sensing based land cover maps are the most convenient data source for this purpose, as they provide the required information on green and non-green areas in a spatially explicit manner and allow for comparison over time through land cover change analysis.
Currently, FAO uses land cover time series produced by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) as a general solution. The original CCI classes are re-classified into six IPCC classes and further into binary green/non-green cover classes
Further reading: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-15-04-02.pdf
Ecosystems: Mountains
Importance for ecosystem restoration: The Mountain Green Cover Index monitors land cover changes in mountain areas determining the coverage of green vegetation, based on the positive correlation between vegetation health and the health of mountains and their ecosystem services (De Simone et al., 2021). Mountain ecosystems are important biodiversity centres that provide valuable ecosystem services to upstream and downstream areas. The degradation of mountain ecosystems such as loss of the glacial cover, mountain biodiversity and green cover will affect the ability of the ecosystem to supply water downstream. The loss of forest and vegetative cover will reduce the ability of the ecosystem to retain soil and prevent landslides and flooding downstream. Additionally, because vegetation changes have an estimated impact in terms of ecosystem degradation and recovery, this indicator provides information on the status of mountain ecosystems (FAO, 2023b).
References:
De Simone, L., Navarro, D., Gennari, P., Pekkarinen, A., & de Lamo, J. (2021). Using standardized time series land cover maps to monitor the sdg indicator “mountain green cover index” and assess its sensitivity to vegetation dynamics. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10(7), 427.
FAO (2023b). SDG indicator metadata: 15.4.2 [online]. [Cited 07 July 2023]. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-15-04-02.pdf
